View full sizeThis is an artist's rendering of the proposed expansion to the Northampton Survival Center.

NORTHAMPTON - The Northampton Survival Center has cleared its zoning hurdles and is on track to break ground this fall on an expansion that will double its size.

The Zoning Board of Appeals last week granted the center’s request for a finding to expand its 265 Prospect St. facility, allowing it to build closer to its property lines than the normal zoning for set-backs allows. Since 1986, the center has been operating out of a former garage once used by the city’s Recreation Department. The city still owns the building, but the Survival Center has a 30-year lease.

The Survival Center distributes food to income-eligible individuals and families. Executive Director Heidi Nortonsmith said the operation has outgrown its space as demand for food has increased by some 23 percent over the last couple of years. Currently, the center hands out about 2,000 pound of food a day to as many as 40 families. Over the course of a year, it serves 4,150 people.

“The expansion will enable us to provide more food for the clients who come to us month after month,” Nortonsmith said.

While most of the additional space will be used to stock food, the expansion will also create office space for the center’s staff. Nortonsmith said this will provide much-needed privacy for clients, some of whom break down in tears the first time they come asking for food.

“Some of it is the heartbreak of describing the situations they’re in,” said Nortonsmith. “Sometimes it’s relief that someone is paying attention to their needs.”

The expansion also calls for a conference room where clients can learn about cooking, nutrition and job skills.

The center is still short of its $850,000 fund-raising goal. Among the donors is 60-year-old Richard Moodie, a long-time manual laborer at Northampton State Hospital who gave the center $200,000 of his inheritance from his parents, the largest donation the Survival Center has ever received.

Nortonsmith said she hopes the project will break ground in the fall and be completed by next spring. During those six months, the center will operate out of another location that has yet to be determined.